M. Paul de JerseyThe Role of the Supreme Court of Queensland in theConvergence of Legal SystemsIn: Revue internationale de droit comparé. Vol. 55 N°1, Janvier-mars 2003. pp. 31-46.Citer ce document / Cite this document :de Jersey Paul. The Role of the Supreme Court of Queensland in the Convergence of Legal Systems. In: Revue internationalede droit comparé. Vol. 55 N°1, Janvier-mars 2003. pp. 31-46.doi : 10.3406/ridc.2003.5555http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/ridc_0035-3337_2003_num_55_1_55551R.I.D.C. 1-2003 THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND IN THE CONVERGENCE OF LEGAL SYSTEMS Paul de JERSEY* Sir Samuel Griffith drew substantially on international jurisprudence in his contribution to the early development of Australian common law. On the statutory side, the blueprint for his Criminal Code was the Italian Zanardelli Code. Griffith's Code subsequently served as the template for many overseas codes. This article addresses the extent to which the law of jurisdictions has influenced the development of the law of Queensland and Australia, and vice versa. When sworn in as Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia in 1 952, Sir Owen Dixon expressed the view that "the authority of the courts of law administering justice according to law is a product of British tradition and it is for us to maintain it" '. While the Chief Justice acknowledged then that the Australian legal system was indelibly marked with the imprint of its colonial mother- country 2, the system had obviously developed in its own distinct way since the arrival of British common law with the new entrants to Sydney Cove in 1788, and over the last five decades, that development has involved a canter if not a gallop. The contemporary Australian focus is sharply fixed on the maintenance, and further refinement, of a distinctively Australian jurisprudence. * Chief Justice of Queensland, Australia. I am considerably indebted to my Associate, Ms Ilona TURNBULL, for her valuable and extensive assistance in the preparation of this paper. First published in (2002) 76 Australian Law Journal 749-760. The Rt Hon Sir Owen DIXON, "Address Upon Taking the Oath of Office as Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia" (1952) 26 ALJ 3 at 5. 2 PARKINSON, Tradition and Change in Australian Law, (LBC, Sydney, 1995), Ch. 1, p. 3. 32 REVUE INTERNATIONALE DE DROIT COMPARE 1-2003 This article seeks to deal with the impact of international jurisprudence on the development of the statute law, and the common law, of this jurisdiction ; and to an extent, vice versa. Queensland being part of the federation, it is important to note first our context, within the gestation of national, Australian law. THE RECEPTION OF BRITISH COMMON LAW INTO AUSTRALIA When the British deemed Australia terra nullius — a land uninhabited, "settled" 3 rather and therefore capable under international law of being than ceded or conquered 4, "all the English laws then in being, which are the birthright of every English subject, (were) immediately there in force" 5. But when the First Fleet landed, they brought with them "only so much of the English law as (was) applicable to their new situation and the condition of an infant colony" 6. To avoid confusion as to which English law applied in New South Wales, the Imperial Parliament in 1828 passed the Australian Courts Act (9 Geo IV, c 83). It provided that all laws in force in England on 28 July 1828 which were applicable to New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land 7, were deemed to be in force there. That was not to say the applicable common law was frozen in time after 1828 — applied" the common 8. law rules as "expounded from time to time (were) to be The independent development of Australian law was nevertheless curbed by limitations placed on legislative councils during the early 19th century, stipulating their enactments must not be "repugnant" to the laws of England. Given the term "repugnant" was undefined, there were problems determining the extent of divergence necessary to give rise to "repugnance". Apparently in response to the efforts of one particularly zealous Anglophilic Judge, who invalidated very many pieces of South Australian legislation on the basis of "repugnancy", an independent investigatory committee was established and thence the Imperial Government's enactment of the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 (28 & 29 Viet, c 63). While reflecting the pre-eminence of English law, that Act provided no colonial law was to be invalidated on the ground of repugnancy unless 3 In 1889, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council confirmed that Australia had indeed been "settled" in Cooper v Stuart 14 App Cas 286 at 291. 4 MORRIS & al., Laying Down the Law (4th ed, Butterworths, Sydney, 1996), Ch. 3, p. 27. 5 BLACKSTONE, Commentaries on the Laws of England (11th ed, Cadell, London, 1791), vol. 1, p. 108. 6 Ibid. 1 As Queensland and Victoria were originally part of New South Wales, the 28 July 1828 commencement date also applied in those areas/colonies. South Australia adopted the date of reception as the date of the colony's settlement on 28 December 1836, while Western Australia adopted 1 June 1829. Further, see PARKINSON, op. cit. n° 3, pp. 142-143. s J. GIBBS in State Government Insurance Commission v Trigwell (1979) 142 CLR 617 at 625-626. P. DE JERSEY : THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND 33 inconsistent with British legislation specifically directed at the colony 9. The Westminster Parliament thereby did its then best to encourage newly developing colonies. The Act ensured the fledgling Australian legislatures should not replicate English laws premised on English society in Australia, but instead, utilise British notions of justice with a view to developing innovative bodies of law responsive to the unique needs of Australian society 10. Australian adoption of English laws continued through the later 19th century. As an example, the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875 of the United Kingdom, militating the concurrent administration of common law and equity, provoked parallel reforms in the Australian jurisdictions — Queensland leading the way with the Judicature Act 1876 n. Diminution of English hegemony in judicial decision-making was accelerated by Sir Owen Dixon in 1963 in Parker v R 12, His Honour refusing, with the concurrence of his colleagues, to follow a decision of the House of Lords in a criminal matter — considering it erroneous. Yet as late as 1966, Skelton v Collins l3 evidenced considerable reluctance in the Justices to depart from House of Lords authority, even if considered wrongly decided. After some reforms during the late I960' s and 1970' s 14, Australia's path to legal autonomy was legislatively enshrined with the passing of the Australian and British Australia Acts 1986, providing that : "no Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the commencement of this Act shall extend, or be deemed to extend, to the Commonwealth, to a State or Territory as part of the law of the of the State or of the Territory" 15. The Australia Acts also abolished appeals from Australian jurisdictions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. At last, Australia had secured its own true legal independence. How much of the system which has developed has nevertheless been influenced by international jurisprudence ? In particular, to what extent is the Queensland legal system predicated on international notions and guided by precedent, and for how long has "borrowing" of 10y 11 Section South MORRIS, Australia 3 Colonial op. cit. followed n"5, Imws p. with Validity 33. the See Act Judicature also 1 865 PARKINSON, (28 Act & 1878 29 Viet, (SA), op. cit. c then 63). n° Western 3, p. 144. Australia in 1880 (Supreme Court Act 1880), Victoria in 1883 (Judicature Act 1883) and Tasmania in 1903 (Legal Procedure Act 1903). New South Wales took longer — implementing fusion in 1970 Court Act 1970). 12 (1963) 111 CLR 610 at 632. 13 (1966) 115 94. Further see KERCHER, An Unruly Child: A History of Law in Australia, 14 Ibid. As (Allen KERCHER & Unwin, points Sydney, out, 1995), the Commonwealth p. 177. Parliament abolished appeals from the High Court to the Privy Council on constitutional and federal law matters in 1968. This was followed by a more far-reaching Act in 1975, which abolished nearly all other appeals from the High Court except under s. 74 of the Constitution on inter se matters. Appeals State Supreme Courts to the Privy Council were accepted until the passing of the Australia Acts in 1986. 15 Section 1 Australia Act 1986 (Cth). REVUE INTERNATIONALE DE DROIT COMPARE 1-2003 34international legal concepts been occurring ? And to what extent has Queensland been influential elsewhere ? Much of our system depends on the work of the State's brilliant and perspicacious early jurist, Sir Samuel Griffith, and his most memorable mark rests on the national constitution. SIR SAMUEL GRIFFITH AND THE CONSTITUTION He was foremost an interesting personality. Born in Wales in 1845 and migrating to Australia in 1853, Griffith became Premier of Queensland in 1883, third State Chief Justice in 1893, and in 1903, first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia — where he remained for 16 years until 1919 16. Griffith was erudite and versatile, his capacities extending to translating Dante's La Divinia Commedia from Italian to English L7 — a true Italophile — and that had some interesting international consequences to which I will return. He was a distinguished and forward-thinking jurist, and a statesman who saw federation as the way to democratic independence for a united Australia. To paraphrase Sir Edmund Barton, for the first time in human history there would be a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation 18. Along with other influential statesmen, Andrew Clark, Alfred Deakin, Sir Edmund Barton and Charles Kingston, Griffith organised multiple Constitutional Conventions 19 to explore the prospect of federating. At Easter time in 1891, drifting on Refuge Bay in the Hawkesbury aboard the Queensland Government Steam Yacht, Lucinda 20, Griffith, together with Kingston, Barton and Clark, produced a draft constitution bill. (There is a replica of the Lucinda' s "upper deck gentlemen's smoking room", where the drafting occurred, on level 2 (public corridor) of the Supreme Courthouse in Brisbane). While others assisted Griffith in the drafting of the Bill, as Alfred Deakin later wrote, "as a whole and in every clause (it) bore the stamp of Sir Samuel Griffith's patient and untiring handiwork, his terse, clear style and force of expression" 21. That draft was revived 16 See also IOYCE, Samuel Walker Griffith, (University of Queensland Press, Queensland, 1718 PANNAM, Sir Harry 1984). GIBBS, "Dante "Dinner and the Address Chief Justice" : The Constitution (1959) 33 : ALT 100 Years 290. On" at the Proceedings of the Thirteenth Conference of the Samuel Griffith Society, Melbourne, 31 August-2 September 2001. See http://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volumel3/vl3di nner.htm (accessed 12 June 2002), p. 1. 19 The first being the National Australasian Convention held from March to April 1891 with further conferences at Corowa (31 July-1 August 1893), Hobart (29 January 1895) and Bathurst (17-21 November 1896). Another National Australasian Convention was held across 1897-1898 (Adelaide 22 March-23 April 1897 ; Sydney 2-24 September 1897 and Melbourne 20 January-7 March 1898). See also http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/places/cth/cthl.htm (accessed 13 June 2002). 20 QUICK & GARRAN, The Annotated Constitution of the Australian Constitution (Legal Books, Sydney, 1976) p. 130. 21 DEAKIN, The Federal Story : The Inner History of the Federal Cause 1980-1900 (Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1944), p. 32. P. DE JERSEY : THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND 35 at the 1897-1898 Conferences, ratified by the colonies' Premiers in early 1899 22, coming into force on 1 January 1901 23. In drafting our Australian Constitution, Griffith and his colleagues resorted for inspiration to North American 24 experience. With Griffith's appointment to the High Court, the draftsman and proponent became the interpreter. One of his basal views of its essence was expressed in the doctrine of intergovernmental immunities, precluding States from interfering with the exercise of the legislative or executive power of the Commonwealth and vice versa 25. Griffith, and his colleagues Barton and O'Connor, preferred US doctrine, rejecting the Canadian constitutional theory which had developed according to British law 2b. Griffith explained the Court's then approach to US precedent — he expressed reliance on eight United States authorities 27 — to placate detractors who asserted a preference for the Canadian approach : "We are not, of course, bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. But we all think that it would need some courage for any Judge at the present day to decline to accept the interpretation placed upon the United States Constitution by so great a Judge so long ago as 1819, and followed up to the present by the succession of great jurists who have since adorned the Bench of the Supreme Court at Washington. So far, therefore, as the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the Commonwealth are similar, the construction put upon the former by the Supreme Court of the United States may well be regarded by us in construing the Constitution of the Commonwealth, not as an infallible guide, but as a most welcome aid and assistance" 28 (The US Judge of 1819 to whom Griffith referred was Chief Justice John Marshall). fn those early days of the federation, United States influence on the interpretation of our instrument was strong : as the Australian Constitution was '^indistinguishable in substance" 29 from the American one, it should receive "like interpretation" 3(), and furthermore, the Court should follow American precedent if "unable otherwise (to) come to a clear conclusion"31. Later High Courts pulled away somewhat from this approach to 242223 Ibid, QUICK PARKINSON, pp. & 228-252. GARRAN, "The EarJy op. High cit. n°21, Court and pp. the 218-220. Doctrine of the Immunity of Instrumentalities", (2002) 13 Public Law Review 26. 25 D'Emden v Pedder (1904) 1 CLR 91 ; Federated Amalgamated Government Railway and Tramway Service Association v NSW Traffic Employees Association (1906) 4 CLR 488 (the Railway Servants case,). See also DEAKJN, op. cit. n" 2, pp. 31-34. 2fi DEAKIN, op. cit. n° 22, p. 27. 27 Powell v Apollo Candle Co. (1885) 10 App Cas 282 ; McCulloch v Maryland 4 Wheaton 316 (1819) ; Bank of Toronto v Lambe 12 AC 575 ; Bank v Mayor 1 Wallis 16 25 ; Osborn v Bank of the United States 9 Wheaton 738 ; Leprohon v Ottawa 3 Ont AR 522 ; Bank v Mayor 1 Wallis 16 (1868) ; Crandall v Nevada 6 Wallis 35. 28 D'Emden v Pedder (1904) 1 CLR 91. 29 Ibid, at 113. 30 Ibid. 3136 REVUE INTERNATIONALE DE DROIT COMPARE 1-2003 constitutional interpretation 32. Griffith did not feel constrained by the weight of atavistic English law : he preferred instead to select what he, for his part, identified as "premium" sources of jurisprudence from across the common law world, and asserted the authority of the High Court to do that. In 1904, Griffith censured the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria for following Judicial Committee decisions on the Canadian Constitution rather than a relevant High Court decision on the Australian 33. Then, in 1908, in Bayne v Blake 34, he implicitly rebuked the Victorian Chief Justice for avowing the High Court could not direct a Supreme Court officer to conduct an inquiry, in the course of a case more broadly significant for progressing of High Court proceedings in the context of an unresolved appeal to the Privy Council. Griffith confronted the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1907, in Baxter v Commissioner of Taxation 35, refusing to follow its decision in Webb v Outrim 36 : the High Court alone had jurisdiction over an inter se question where no certificate pursuant to s 74 of the Constitution had been granted. In fact in that case, five of the States had asked that a certificate be granted, perhaps a reflection of early State reluctance to accept their relatively new High Court as utterly reliable. It would be wrong to think it was only North-American precedent which influenced Griffith. He was not entirely antithetical to the use of English precedent, and let us not overlook his Welsh origins ! Griffith, the Australian, commendably traversed the common law world generally, in his quest for guidance via what he assessed as the "best" sources of international law. SIR SAMUEL GRIFFITH AND THE QUEENSLAND CRIMINAL CODE I now mention Griffith's magnificent work on the Criminal Code of Queensland. This provides a very good illustration of our early understandable dependence on the wisdom of others. When he was Chief Justice of Queensland, Griffith accepted a commission from the then Premier, Sir Thomas Mcllwriath, to draft a model criminal code for the State. He completed the mammoth task but five years later in 1898, and the Code came into force on 1 January 1901 37. Embarking on his task, Griffith noted that : 32 Amalgamated Society of Engineers v Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd (Engineers' Case) (1920) 33 28 J. McHUGH, CLR 129. "The High Court and the Oxford Companion to the High Court" at the 2002 Constitutional Law and Conference Dinner, New South Wales, 15 February 2002 at http://www.hcourt.gov.au/speeches/mchughj/rnchughj — oxford.htm (accessed 11 June 2002) p. 4. 34 (1908) 5 CLR 497. 35 (1907) 4 1087. 36AC 81 ; (1907) 4 CLR 356. 37 O'REGAN QC, "Sir Samuel Griffith's Criminal Code" (1992) 7 Australian Bar Review 141. DE JERSEY : THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND 37 P. "...the written Criminal Law of Queensland... is scattered through nearly two hundred and fifty Statutes, while the unwritten portion of the Criminal Law, which forms a very large part of it, is only to be found in the books of writers on the subject of the Criminal Law of England, or in decisions of courts of criminal jurisdiction" 38. Hence his mild admonition : "it must seem strange to the ordinary mind that in the present stage of civilisation a great branch of the law, by which everyone is bound, and which is understood to be definitely known and settled, should not be reduced to writing in such a form that any intelligent person able to read can ascertain what it is" 39. And so Griffith was emboldened to codify the criminal law of Queensland — an initiative which would have worldwide impact. While extolling the virtues of codification Bentham style, he did note inherent problems, and "remarked that codification is a very different thing from consolidation. The latter is a comparatively easy though laborious work, consisting merely in the collection and orderly arrangement of existing statutory provisions. Codification includes all this, but includes a complete statement of all the principles and rules of law applicable to the subject- matter" 4(). Griffith began by compiling a digest of all statutory offences known to be in force in Queensland41, numbering about 1000. As mentioned, he was an Italophile, sharing this with his friend, Sir William Macgregor, who by chance was in possession of the kalian Penal Code, also known as the "Zanardelli Code" of 1888 42. In 1894, Macgregor, then Administrator of British New Guinea, and later Governor of Queensland, gave Griffith a copy of the Zanardelli Code, together with an Italian dictionary. made use ofthat code, in conjunction with the English Draft Bill of 1880 and the code of the State of New York of 1881 . The influence of the Zanardelli Code was considerable, if not primary. As put by Griffith : "I have derived very great assistance from this Code which is, 1 believe, considered to be in many respects, the most complete and perfect Penal Code in existence" 44. The Zanardelli Code was extraordinarily influential : not only for Griffith's Code, but also for the codes of Venezuela, Chile, Argentina ■™ In a letter to the Attorney-General dated 29 October 1897 where he forwarded his draft code — Queensland Parliamentary Papers CA 89-1897 at [V. 39 Ibid. 40 In a paper entitled "Criminal Responsibility : A Chapter from a Criminal Code" which Griffith presented to a meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science on 12 January 1898 p. 896. 41 Called The Digest of the Statutory Criminal Law in Force in Queensland on the First day of January 1896. 42 The Hon Justice K.A. CULLINANE'S (the Northern Judge) translation of Professor CADOPPI's article, "The Zanardelli Code and Codification in the Countries of the Common Law", (2000) 7 James Cook University Law 118 at 134. 4344 In O'REGAN, a letter to op. the cit. Attorney-General n° 38 at p.'l42. dated 29 October 1897 by which he forwarded his draft code — Queensland Parliamentary Papers CA 89-1897 at VII. 38 REVUE INTERNATIONALE DE DROIT COMPARE 1-2003 and Cuba 45. It was a "true code", comprising a general part, a series of principles defining criminal responsibility, and the delineation of specific offences and defences 46. Griffith's first complete draft of 1897 demonstrated with clarity the derivation of each of its components. The right hand side of the page presents a column containing the proposed provision, and the left, a column specifying the source of the clause 47. For example, Griffith acknowledged his s. 23 : "...a person is not criminally responsible for an act or omission which occurs independently of the exercise of his will, or for an event by accident", was based on article 45 of Zanardelli, which, in Griffith' s view, succinctly stated a criminal law proposition "not particular to any locality or any special system of jurisprudence" 48. On this aspect, Griffith adopted Zanardelli word for word. He considered the provisions of many codes in relation 49 : the to the definition of insanity for determining criminal responsibility Dutch, German and Hungarian, the Code of Zurich, the Austrian Draft of 1881, the Russian Draft of 1881, the Code Napoleon, the New York Code and the Zanardelli Code. Once again, he preferred the Zanardellian expression. In December 1898, the Queensland Government convened a Royal Commission to examine Griffith's draft Code. There was division of opinion on only two matters 50. The Bill encountered a few problems in its passage through Parliament, but fittingly, at a time when Griffith was acting Governor, the Bill finally passed and received Royal Assent, by Griffith's own hand, on 28 November 1899 51. The Griffith Code, perhaps better styled the "Griffith-Zanardelli" Code, became a model adopted, if with adaptation, by many other regimes, some of this migration fostered by the British Colonial Office : Papua, then British New Guinea in 1902, New Guinea in 1921 52, the Solomon Islands, Fiji 53, the Seychelles, Nigeria (apart from Northern Nigeria) 54, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Zanzibar, Gambia and Botswana . Cyprus, Israel and Palestine adopted parts of 45 The Hon Justice K. A. CULLINANE in his translation of SCHULZE "The Italian Contribution to European Penal Law in the late 19th Century" — paper presented at the 55th Congress of the History of the Italian Risorgimento at Sorrento in December 1990, p. 112. 46 CADOPPI, op. cit. n°43 at 137. 47 See Draft of a Code of Criminal Law prepared for the Government of Queensland, Government Printer, Brisbane, 1897. 495048 Ibid, GRIFFITH, The Minutes at 900-901. op. of Proceedings cit. n° 41 at of 897. the Commission and its Report and Draft Bill were published in 49 Journals of the Legislative Council CA 38-1899 at X and XI. 51 O'REGAN, op. cit. n° 38 at 146-147. 52 Criminal Code Ordinance 1902; Laws Repeal and Adopting Ordinance 1921. See also KENNY, An Introduction to Criminal Law in Queensland and Western Australia (4th ed, Butterworths, Sydney, 1997), p. 5. 5453 CADOPPI, O'REGAN, op. cit. n° 43 38 at 180. 150. 55 Ibid at 182-183. DE JERSEY : THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND 39 P. the Code, with the Italian Professor Cadoppi describing the Penal Code of Palestine as a "nephew of the Griffith Code" 56. The Griffith Code has served Queensland remarkably well : the satisfaction of the people of Queensland and their governments has been enduring. Following enactment in 1899, it was not comprehensively reviewed for as many as 95 years 57. Some more years passed before updating to include offences like stalking and torture, thrown up by the vicissitudes of 21st century life. SOME RETREAT FROM RELIANCE ON ENGLISH PRECEDENT While Griffith resorted to a deal of broadly international precedent, both in legislation and the common law, he tended in that respect to sit in the minority. Generally, the formulation of most legislative provisions, and the development of the common law, fairly closely followed the English path over the fifty or so years following Griffith's death. There has been discernible divergence over the last two or three decades — hardly surprising, with the crystallisation of Australian identity and the greater alliance between the system of our cousin 24 hours away, and European law. Indirectly flagging a broader international view, the High Court noted in Cook v Cook in 19H6 : "The history of this country and of the common law makes it inevitable and desirable that the courts of this country will continue to obtain assistance and guidance from the learning and reasoning of United Kingdom courts just as Australian courts benefit from the learning and reasoning of other great common law courts". Australian courts will look, have looked, increasingly to common law jurisdictions other than England for comparative law precedent. I will shortly mention a couple of the more recent legislative initiatives reliant on international jurisprudence, but refer first to some words of Sir Anthony Mason a year later than Cook v Cook, in 1987 : "One element of reality is that for the past twenty years at least, our statute law... has been largely original and not derivative. Our Parliaments, instead of following English legislative models, have pursued indigenous solutions adapted to Australian conditions and circumstances, sometimes after taking careful account of American experience" 59. a) In the criminal jurisdiction In the criminal arena, there is increasing resort to United States and Canadian legislation in the formulation of Queensland statutes. On 23 5756 See Ibid at O' REGAN, 184. HERLIHY and P. QUINN, Final Report of the Criminal Code Review Committee to the Attorney-General, Queensland, (June 1992), p. 3. 5S (1986) 162 CLR 376 at 390. 59 "Future Directions in Australian Law", 13 (1987) Monash University Law Review 149 at 149.